Newbie: Burning to CD

[J.Jack.J.]

This will be extremely basic; sorry about that. I have got this
infuriating thing of not being able to burn to CD in such a way that
the result will be readable by XP. I'm on Vista and according to Help
there's supposed to be a dialogue box that springs up asking about how
you want files to be burnt to CD when a blank CD is inserted. With
some fiddling around I got Vista to produce a menu, one of whose
options is 'burn to disk'. But then when I click on it, it just says
there aren't any files to be burnt. Where are the files supposed to be
put for them to be recognised?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

This will be extremely basic; sorry about that. I have got this
infuriating thing of not being able to burn to CD in such a way that
the result will be readable by XP. I'm on Vista and according to
Help there's supposed to be a dialogue box that springs up asking
about how you want files to be burnt to CD when a blank CD is
inserted. With some fiddling around I got Vista to produce a menu,
one of whose options is 'burn to disk'. But then when I click on
it, it just says there aren't any files to be burnt. Where are the
files supposed to be put for them to be recognised?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Burn-a-CD-or-DVD
"Mastered format"

 

[J.Jack.J.]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Burn-a-CD-or-DVD
"Mastered format"

It says
1) Insert a writeable CD or DVD into your computer's CD or DVD
recorder.

2) In the dialog box that appears, click Burn files to data disc.

3) In the Burn a Disc dialog box, type a name for this disc, and then
click Show formatting options.

It's #3 that doesn't appear, because, as I say, it tells me there are
no files to write to disk.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

This will be extremely basic; sorry about that. I have got this
infuriating thing of not being able to burn to CD in such a way
that the result will be readable by XP. I'm on Vista and
according to Help there's supposed to be a dialogue box that
springs up asking about how you want files to be burnt to CD when
a blank CD is inserted. With some fiddling around I got Vista to
produce a menu, one of whose options is 'burn to disk'. But then
when I click on it, it just says there aren't any files to be
burnt. Where are the files supposed to be put for them to be
recognised?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Burn-a-CD-or-DVD
"Mastered format"

It says
1) Insert a writeable CD or DVD into your computer's CD or DVD
recorder.

2) In the dialog box that appears, click Burn files to data disc.

3) In the Burn a Disc dialog box, type a name for this disc, and
then
click Show formatting options.

It's #3 that doesn't appear, because, as I say, it tells me there
are no files to write to disk.

It assumes you dragged/dropped the files you wanted to burn onto the CD
drive icon/inside the Opened CD/DVD drive folder long before this point. ;-)

 

[Frank Drew Leyda]

This will be extremely basic; sorry about that. I have got this
infuriating thing of not being able to burn to CD in such a way that
the result will be readable by XP. I'm on Vista and according to Help
there's supposed to be a dialogue box that springs up asking about how
you want files to be burnt to CD when a blank CD is inserted. With
some fiddling around I got Vista to produce a menu, one of whose
options is 'burn to disk'. But then when I click on it, it just says
there aren't any files to be burnt. Where are the files supposed to be
put for them to be recognised?

*************************************************
Being extremely basic is good.
Easier to understand and help.

 

[J.Jack.J.]

Vista is hopeless at CD/DVD burning.
This is free and much better:http://www.imgburn.com/

Have already got VLC. Problem is there is no indication, other than a
red dot (button) as to how to record. I open the file and click the
red dot and it doesn't record to my CD.
It's not an audio file, it's a .iso.
With thanks.

 

[J.Jack.J.]

It assumes you dragged/dropped the files you wanted to burn onto the CD
drive icon/inside the Opened CD/DVD drive folder long before this point. ;-)

I do that and it just asks me if I want to copy/replace the one I have
already burnt there (using the burn that will only be readable by
Vista). I suspect there is some setting in the Autoplay defaults that
needs to change, but I can't guess which. I have yet to see this
dialogue box that is supposed to appear.
With thanks.

 

[J.Jack.J.]

Vista is hopeless at CD/DVD burning.
This is free and much better:http://www.imgburn.com/

I downloaded the app.
Unfortunately I can't get it to do what I want. To begin with, it
seems only to give the option of burning a .cue file, when I thought
what I would need would be an ,iso file (wouldn't I?)..
Second, it doesn't seem to want to burn to disk. The only complaint I
think it seems to be giving is 'disk not empty'. It's got only a small
amount of data on. When I try to erase the data, it says that it's an
incompatible format.
I can't believe it's such an ordeal just to burn a tiny file to a CD!
With thanks.

 

[J.Jack.J.]

I've now managed to burn to disk but I'm disappointed if the disk
always needs to be blank for burning to be feasible. Maybe it's just
the way I was doing it.
Since my disk isn't being read by my desktop, can I be certain that it
would have been burnt in a WinXP-compatible format?
With thanks.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I've now managed to burn to disk but I'm disappointed if the disk
always needs to be blank for burning to be feasible. Maybe it's just
the way I was doing it.
Since my disk isn't being read by my desktop, can I be certain that
it would have been burnt in a WinXP-compatible format?
With thanks.

Wait... What?

"... I'm disappointed if the disk always needs to be blank for burning to be
feasible ..."

You need to read up on things.

If you are writing to -R (or +R) media and not +/-RW media - that is true.
If you are using the built-in Windows (XP, Vista I think, Windows 7 may have
a new way to write called the "Live File System", however) utilities to
write CD/DVDs - even to +/-RW media - it is a 'erase and rewrite' deal. If
you use some third party applications, you can use the +/-RW media more like
a disk (like a USB drive, etc.)

Yes - I know - "Newbie" right in the subject line. Well - not so much
anymore. ;-) Use some Google searches...

Watch a Video...

 

[Frank Drew Leyda]

"> Vista is hopeless at CD/DVD burning.

This is free and much better:http://www.imgburn.com/

********************************************************
That is more of an Image burning program.
Does it work for other type files ?



I downloaded the app.
Unfortunately I can't get it to do what I want. To begin with, it
seems only to give the option of burning a .cue file, when I thought
what I would need would be an ,iso file (wouldn't I?)..
Second, it doesn't seem to want to burn to disk. The only complaint I
think it seems to be giving is 'disk not empty'. It's got only a small
amount of data on. When I try to erase the data, it says that it's an
incompatible format.
I can't believe it's such an ordeal just to burn a tiny file to a CD!
With thanks.